ONE WEEK LATER

Becca was immediately overcome with nostalgia upon entering Josh’s Orlando home. It had been in this house that she and Josh had spent many a night together. They had christened nearly every spot in the house making love or fooling around. There were plenty of times she and Josh hadn’t had the strength to move afterwards and were too engrossed in one another to even make it upstairs. Not much had changed in the house. He was never there any more and Becca had often wondered why he didn’t just sell it. It was smaller than his home in L.A. and definitely not as up to date in its interior.

“This is Daddy’s house?” Dylan asked, walking over to the winding staircase. “When does he live here?”

“He hasn’t for a long time, baby,” Becca answered, and put her suitcase down at the bottom of the stairs. “You went here once when you were a baby.” The first time she and Josh had spent Christmas together with Dylan, which obviously Dylan wouldn’t remember. She hadn’t even been a year old. The house was sprawling inside and out and was quite open. But with the click of a switch, all of the blinds could come down in an instant and it would be completely dark. Once, Josh had put the blinds down and told Becca that they weren’t going to open them all weekend. It had been the most romantic weekend of her life still to this day. A part of her had craved for something like that with other beaus, but Josh seemed to be the only one who knew exactly what it meant to be really, really romantic.

“Mama, can we go swimming?” Dylan ran over to the window overlooking the backyard. It was complete with a waterfall and caves that wove in and out of the pool. Becca remembered a huge cookout that Josh had held right before the 2000 summer tour had kicked off. The party hadn’t ended until almost six a.m. and she and Josh had gone skinny dipping after everyone had left.

“Um,” Becca shook herself out of her daydream. “Yes. But let’s wait until we unpack, okay?” As they made their way upstairs with luggage, Becca continued to feel as though she’d been sucked into a time warp. The guest bedroom, where she put her belongings down, felt unfamiliar because five years ago, she’d automatically go straight to his room at the end of the hall. Dylan’s room, which had been used as a storage room, had a brand new twin bed with a purple motif. Purple was Dylan’s favorite color and Josh had spent hours on the phone with a decorator to get his daughter’s room just right.

“Where is Daddy’s room?” Dylan asked, following Becca back to the guest bedroom.

Becca looked down the other end of the hallway. She couldn’t go in there. If she was already daydreaming about all of the places they’d had sex, going in there would only add to her thoughts. And she was done having anything but a platonic relationship with Josh.

“It’s down there,” she pointed. “But we’ll look at it later, babe. Don’t you want to go swimming?”

Dylan swam for nearly an hour and a half, then she and Becca ordered in pizza and sat out by the pool for dinner. Dylan was asking a million questions about the house, about meeting Briahna Fatone tomorrow, about when she’d see Alyssa again, and even more questions about when her father would be out to visit. By the time Becca had gotten her ready for bed, she was exhausted just from answering all of her child’s inquiries. She changed into her pajamas and washed her face after kissing Dylan goodnight. It was past ten and she should’ve been wiped out, but for some reason, suddenly felt energized. She hadn’t really explored the house, just sort of wandered about it as she got Dylan ready for swimming and dinner. She walked downstairs again and ventured into the theatre room. Plush couches still aligned the walls and a screen sat dark and dusty. They’d watched Pulp Fiction in here. Or they’d at least started to watch it. Becca blushed and was glad she was here alone with her thoughts. The secrets this house held. Becca had sunken into a reminiscent mode and was stuck back in time. Five years ago seemed like a lifetime ago.

She closed the door behind her and wandered back upstairs. It was eerily quiet. Then again, this house was basically a party house back in the day and she’d never been alone in it. She walked towards the guest room to get into bed, but then found herself looking down the hall. His room. That room where so many nights had been spent together. It was almost taunting her, she felt. She slowly walked toward his bedroom. She stood in front of it, touching the door handle as though it might burn right through her skin if she opened it. She let out a sigh and turned the handle, opening the door to his bedroom. Here was their past. It was all in here.

Josh’s bedroom took up the entire second half of the house. The walk-in closet was the size of a small bedroom. The bathroom contained a Jacuzzi, steam room, and a shower with two shower heads. The shower heads were adjustable and there were two shower seats. And the king sized bed was bigger than a king size, Becca had always sworn. When she’d spent the night, they’d inevitably end up on opposite sides of the bed because it was so mammoth-sized. She walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. She felt the soft texture of the duvet that covered it and ran her fingers over the material.

“This is all we need, baby,” he’d whispered, pulling her against him. “Just me and you. I want you so bad, Becca.”

She shivered at his touch. His hands knew exactly where to go. His mouth covered hers and she whimpered at how good he felt.

“Josh,” she bit at his ear lobe and felt him shudder.

“Let’s just stay like this all night, okay?” his voice was gravelly against her neck. She felt his lips trail down her stomach and soon she was grasping at his hair, feeling as if she’d lose her balance if she let go and she was already lying down.

Becca was thinking back to the first night she’d ever been with him. It was  in this bed. She’d flown down for a concert and was staying the weekend. They hadn’t planned it, but they both knew it would happen that weekend, and they’d later admitted it to one another. She remembered everything. Every single detail. Every word that had been spoken between them.

Her arms tightened around his neck, he pulled her closer. With every movement, with every breath, Becca was sent into oblivion and ecstasy all at once.

“I love you,” he kissed her lips softly. “Becca, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Josh,” she kissed him back and pulled him tightly against her. He fell lazily onto her chest, breathing heavily and Becca tugged at his hair with her fingers.

Becca laid down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. This was where he’d told her he loved her and this was where they’d first made love. She knew this was why this bedroom had felt forbidden to her because it was like tearing a band-aid off of a wound. She looked over at the nightstand next to what was his side of the bed. A framed picture caught her eye and she sat up and reached over to grab it. There they were. The two of them. It was taken after a concert. She was smiling brightly at the camera, he was looking down at her with a grin. The frame was dusty and Becca wiped a few specks of dust off of the frame to see the picture better. They looked so happy. And so young. And it had only been five years ago.

She stood to her feet and put the frame back next to his side of the bed. Walking into the bathroom, her eyes fixated on the shower and she blushed again for the umpteenth time that night.

“Where are you going?” he asked her, as he watched her get up from bed. 

“It’s almost noon, silly. I want to get a shower if we’re going out today,” she had replied and walked into the bathroom. 

“Well, I need one, too,” she heard his voice suddenly in her ear.

She turned and he was right behind her, a smirk on his face. 

“Oh, yeah?” she teased him, and pulled off her tank top, throwing it on top of his head. 

“Thanks,” he chuckled, taking the tank top and tossing it on the bathroom counter. He followed her over to the shower. She turned again. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” her eyebrow was raised, her lips formed into a smile, and all Josh could do was reach behind her and turn the shower head on. 

“You. In the shower. In about two minutes,”

Becca leaned against the side of the door to the bathroom and looked at the shower as if she expected it to say something back to her. She knew she should walk out now. It was only stirring up memories of the past and making her feel like she would do it all over again if he were in the room.

“Okay, that was a nice little jaunt down memory lane,” she said to herself and quickly walked out, nearly sprinting back to the guest bedroom. She sat down on the bed and felt her cheeks. They were flushed and all of those memories had only made her long for the past that had taken place in this house.

As if on cue, her phone rang, making her jump and get back to reality.

Except when she picked it up and saw it was Josh.

“Hey, I was just calling to make sure everything was okay at the house,” he greeted her. “Did you have a good flight?” 

Becca sat on the bed and tried to gain her composure again. “Hey. Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“Good. How’s Dylan?” he asked.

“She’s fine. She’s asleep in her bed and loves her bedroom,” 

“That’s great. I was hoping she’d like the color,” Josh cleared his throat. “By the way, I’m coming out there in three days. I hope you don’t mind.” 

“Why would I mind? It’s your house,” Becca replied, hoping all of these silly memories she was thinking about wouldn’t surface when she saw him again.

“Well, I know, but you’re there and I just, I want you to feel like you’re at home. You know what I mean?”

Becca couldn’t help but snicker, “It basically was my home for the first few months we dated,”

Josh was silent for a few seconds. He was sitting on his couch, thinking about the fact that Becca was all alone in his house. And regretting very much that he hadn’t planned on being there when she got in. Not that anything would’ve happened. At least he knew that Becca wouldn’t have let it. 

“I guess you saw it hasn’t changed very much?” Josh finally said.

“No,” Becca slightly chuckled. “No, it hasn’t. I took a little tour. Just to familiarize myself with it again.”

“And?” 

And all I could think about was how often we had sex in this place, Becca thought. “Oh, well, it definitely brought back some memories.” 

“Good or bad?”

All good. All. Good. Becca cleared her throat again, “Well, good, of course. We had a lot of fun back then.” She wished she hadn’t said that. He could’ve taken “fun’ to mean a myriad of things.

Josh was smiling on the other end. “Yeah. We did for sure,”

They were both silent.

“We were so young, Josh,” she finally stated.

“Not that young. We were twenty-two and twenty-five,”

“That’s young,”

“Yeah. You’re right. But it wasn’t as though we were teenagers,”

“Yeah, true,”

Silence. 

“What are you thinking?” Becca dared herself to ask him. 

Josh hesitated. But she asked. “You don’t want to know,” he said softly.

“Why not?” 

“Because, I don’t know if you’d like it,”

“Try me,” Becca pulled back the covers and nestled beneath them. 

“I was thinking about you. In my bed,” his voice became that gravelly, sexy voice she knew all too well.

She said nothing, only waited for him to continue.

“And in the shower,”

Becca stiffened. He was reading her mind. Or else he knew her better than she remembered and probably knew she had gone into his bedroom.

“And in my pool,”

Becca gulped. She shouldn’t have asked what he was thinking. She should’ve just told him about how excited Dylan was about meeting Briahna. She felt as though she couldn’t speak.

“Yeah,” she finally said. “Yeah, I know. I feel like that’s all we did here.”

Josh chuckled softly on the other end of the phone. “It’s cause we were so good at it,” 

“Mmhm," 

Silence again. Becca knew she should hang up. She had an early rehearsal the next morning.

“Becca, can I tell you something?”

She was a bit stunned. Normally, this far into a conversation, they were arguing about something.

“Um, yeah. Sure,”

“You’re the best I’ve ever had,”

Becca felt her mouth go dry and her face turn red. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was letting alcohol do all the talking for him. He’d been with Eva Longoria for crying out loud. Becca had seen her numerous times and felt extremely insecure thinking about the fact that she’d been with Josh and so had Eva and that Eva was probably worlds better at everything.

“Really? Well, wow, I’m flattered,” she felt dumb for responding that way, but what else could she say to that?

“I mean it,”

“I believe you. Although you’ve been with some gorgeous women since me,”

“That doesn’t mean much. Trust me,” Josh assured her.

Becca remembered many late night conversations with him like this in years past. She remembered calling Janelle immediately the first time they’d ever had phone sex and telling her how awesome and sexy and weird and unbelievable it had felt. A part of her wondered if she and Josh would end up doing that tonight. They were both talking almost in code with each other. And she kind of wanted to. She didn’t know why, other than the fact that she was stuck in 2000 in this house and suddenly felt as though she were 22 again. Just last week she’d been livid with him. But then again, that was the norm in their relationship. 

She licked her lips as they’d become just as dry as her mouth. “Josh,” she nearly whispered.

“What?” he already knew where this whole conversation had been headed.

“Remember when, I mean, remember back when we first started dating. And we’d be miles apart from one another?”

“Mmhm,”

Silence again.

“Becca?”

“What?”

“For old time’s sake? Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Is this crazy? We’re not even together,”

Yet, he said to himself. Surely after this, she’d have to see it differently. Right? He knew Becca and he knew she didn’t normally ever act like this except with him because he could bring it out in her.

“We have a history, Becca. I think it’s okay,”

She was quiet. 

“But we don’t have to if you don’t want to. You just were mentioning it in a round about way and so I just thought….” He trailed off waiting for her to finish his sentence but she didn’t. She was quiet again. “I was honestly just calling to see if you’d made it to the house okay.” 

“I know," 

“I wasn’t calling to-“

“I know,”

“Okay. Well, do you want me to let you go?”

“No,”

“What do you want?”

Becca curled under the sheets. She told him exactly, in explicit terms what she wanted. It was dangerous and she knew it. She wasn’t with him and she knew the next time she saw him, it would be awkward. More awkward than it had been in a long time.

But right now she didn’t care.

“Becca,” Josh spoke softly after they were finished. His voice was soft in her ear, as if he were right next to her.

“Huh?” she was in somewhat of an afterglow if she admitted it to herself.

“Let’s do that for real when I get there. In my bed. Like we used to,”

Becca slowly sat up and sighed into the phone. She hadn’t meant for it to sound as exasperated as it came across, but Josh caught on.

“What?” the soft undertone was gone now.

“Josh, I don’t want to ruin anything else. Phone sex is one thing, but you know that every time we’ve casually done it, we end up at each other’s throats. I can’t do that to our daughter. She’s already started asking me why we don’t have a house together like her friends’ parents’ do. And I know she thinks we hate each other because she asked me last week if we even loved each other,”

“Do we?” Josh asked.

“I love you as the father of my child. But romantically, I can’t go down that path anymore,”

“What was that five minutes ago?”

“That was phone sex. Nothing but words, Josh,”

“Nothing but words. That’s nice, Becca. Gee, you sure know how to ruin a moment,”

“What moment? We were finished. It was five minutes for crying out loud!”

“Never mind,” Josh huffed. “Geez, I wish you weren’t so damn stubborn. I wish you could take a chance one more time and see-“

“No!” Becca sat up straight in bed. “Josh, you said you weren’t going to pursue me anymore. You told me that in London. Don’t start that shit with me again. We’re not getting back together. What we did tonight was dumb and it shouldn’t have happened because we can’t even get through talking about it before we’re arguing!”

There was silence on the other end. Becca rubbed her temple and shook her head before she spoke again. “Josh, we’ll always love each other, okay? We’re always going to be that couple that probably should’ve made it, but couldn’t. I’m tired of always fighting with you. I want us to be friends, but I can’t do anymore than that right now or ever, I don’t think,” 

“Can I ask you something?” his tone was soft, his voice genuine.

“Of course,”

“Why do you think our relationships always end in disaster? Why can’t we seem to stay with one person for more than six months?”

“I-I don’t know,”

“I don’t know, either,” he answered, quietly. “I think it’s something to think about.”

“Maybe we’re just not ready to be in a relationship with anybody,” Becca said. “Maybe we both need a break from dating. I don’t know. That’s the best answer I can give.”

“Becca?”

“What?”

“Even if we argued, it was fun tonight, right?”

She was glad he couldn’t see her blushing. “Yeah,” she answered. “But don’t get any ideas. That was a one time deal.”

Josh murmured an agreement, but he knew, when it came to Becca, nothing was ever just one time with them. And he was hoping to prove that theory in three days.